


Desire

by Melina



Series: Epigraph [2]
Category: A Discovery of Witches (TV), All Souls Trilogy - Deborah Harkness
Genre: Episode 1x01, Episode 1x03, Episode Related, F/M, episode 1x02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 02:10:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21245777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melina/pseuds/Melina
Summary: Seeing him standing there the next day outside her college, waiting to see her, felt like a warm breeze gliding over her skin, nullifying the chill of a vampire's gaze.





	Desire

When they first met, it wasn't desire that Diana felt for Matthew Clairmont.

After their first meeting, she felt unsettled; he was a vampire, and everything Sarah had drilled into her head over the years told her that he was dangerous, despite his unassuming manner, despite the fact that he was a colleague. 

Irritation was her primary response to their next two encounters. She might be curious enough to look up his papers, but that didn't give him permission to follow her to her favorite breakfast spot, or to show up in the Bodleian and plant himself at her worktable. He obviously wanted the Ashmole manuscript himself, and she didn't know what to make of his warnings about the danger to her if other creatures thought she had it. It didn't help that he was so cool and distant, but why wouldn't he be? He probably thought as much of witches as witches thought of vampires.

At the boathouse, he angered and frightened her, and she was relieved to get away from him. She interpreted the return of her jacket the next morning, freshly laundered and neatly folded, as a silent apology. She accepted it without question, although she didn't know why it was so easy for her to do so. But whatever had happened to him that night, she instinctively knew that he hadn't intended it, hadn't meant to scare her. 

His warnings turned out to be right. Her own people lied to her, tried to manipulate her, threatened her. She had no doubt that Knox or the Scandinavian witch would hurt her, or someone innocent, to get what they wanted. 

After she learned of Gillian's betrayal, she realized Matthew Clairmont was the only person in Oxford who just might be telling her the truth. He had told her to be careful, and she started to believe that his presence in the library and at the boathouse hadn't been to unnerve her, but to protect her, to urge her to protect herself.

She went to his rooms seeking help, and when he didn't answer the door, a vague sense of desperation settled over her. She was so glad to see him standing at the bottom of the stairs. The story poured out of her, but he was so cold, keeping his distance across the room, busying himself with the mail, looking at anything but her. She thought she'd made a mistake coming to him. His only interest was the book; it had nothing to do with her.

It wasn't until she told him that she didn't want Knox to have the book that his manner toward her shifted. He smiled at her for the first time as he talked about Darwin and deftly avoided her questions about his age. When he asked her to visit his lab, promising he wouldn't harm her, she was almost embarrassed that he felt the need to make such a promise. She already knew he posed no danger to her. 

His coat felt like a kind of armor, a shield against the world, his hands firm and comforting on her shoulders. Learning that he could hear her heartbeat felt unaccountably intimate, but the emotion in his voice when he said he could hear it all the time left her with a deep sense of melancholy. 

So did the visit to the lab. Creatures were going extinct, and magic would die. They would fade into legend, along with everything else, real and imagined, that was no longer part of the world. Matthew sounded resigned, but something told her he hadn't given up, not yet, and it gave her hope.

If the book could help -- if _she_ could help -- she decided that she would. In the garden outside his lab, she told him what little she had seen -- the palimpsest, the alchemical child, the missing pages. He thanked her, sincerely grateful, and for the first time, he touched her, not through a coat, but his skin against hers. 

A long, slow flutter of something that might have been longing went through her when he took her hand. His skin was cool, but not unpleasantly so, and he held her hand a long moment before bending his head to kiss her wrist. Such an archaic, courtly gesture, yet such an intimate one, too. When his lips touched her wrist, she felt far more than a flutter; she was certain her heart skipped a beat. She felt an ache that grew more and more pronounced as they parted, and he walked away from her.

Was it desire? Yes, unmistakably, unaccountably, yes. A desire to see him, to talk to him, to feel his hand holding hers again. Desire to touch him in return, to kiss and be kissed, and not on her wrist. And he must know, if he could hear her heartbeat, just how she had responded to his touch, to him.

Seeing him standing there the next day outside her college, waiting to see her, felt like a warm breeze gliding over her skin, nullifying the chill of a vampire's gaze. Visiting his house, learning bits and pieces of his past, delving into his library...in that moment, she was sure nothing could have made her feel more content. 

With a little bit of prodding, he confessed his age, and all she could think about was how much history he'd seen and been part of. But his rueful response was a reminder that what she thought of as history was, to him, simply his past, like her high school or undergrad years were to her. He'd lived through some very ugly and brutal times, when life was cheap and hard. What he had done, what he had survived, those weren't cold facts or abstract theories filling textbooks and journals. They were the sum total of him, of who he was now. 

She didn't pry further. At least not that day. 

But in her rooms, over dinner, she erred badly by asking him what she might taste like. Her question awakened a side of him, a part of his nature, that he clearly tried to keep tightly under wraps. He tried to frighten her, to impress upon her that he could be as dangerous as he was clever or courtly or kind. But he failed; she simply didn't believe that he would harm her.

"I'm safe with you."

He told her what her scent was like, what he experienced when he touched her, and if this was meant to drive her away, it didn't work, how could he possibly think it would? Her heart pounded in her ears, but it wasn't fear, it was something else entirely.

She gave in to the need to touch him, her fingers on his chest, reaching up to kiss him softly. But her desire for him was one-sided, because he was utterly unresponsive to her, fleeing the room as quickly as he could. As the door shut behind him, she was sure he was walking out of her life. His rejection felt shattering, far worse than it should have, but if he wasn't interested in her as anything except a friend or an ally in the search for the manuscript, then it was what it was, and it was out of her hands.

And Diana had other things to worry about, like her own people coming for her. The cruel photos, the confrontation in the Bodleian, and her anger, her terrifying, uncontrollable rage that created a windstorm in the library, upending everything in sight. But Matthew hadn't walked out of her life. He was there, right there, his solid presence anchoring her, helping her to dissipate the whirlwind she'd created. 

"I've got you. You're safe."

She didn't remember how she'd made it back to her rooms, but when she woke, he was there, watching by the window. He had a plan to spirit her out of Oxford, to take her to France, to keep her safe while she learned how to control her magic. 

When he knelt beside the bed, smoothing her hair back from her face, she understood that Matthew hadn't rejected her last night. He had been denying the strength of the unmistakable connection between them. He kissed her, and it was tender and insistent, sweet and full of longing. Kissing him was everything she'd imagined it would be since the moment he had taken her hand in the garden.

Desire wasn't only hers, it was theirs, a bond between them that was real and undeniable and hadn't yet begun to be fulfilled.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much monicawoe!


End file.
